If you have not had the chance to review some of the free sources of big data that can enhance your content applications, take a look at the Linked Open Data Graph. It's updated daily and you can learn more by searching for the CKAN API. This graph represents tens of billions of semantic facts about a diverse set of topics. These facts have been used to enhance many content driven web sites allowing users to learn more about music, geography, populations and much more.

Talk about crowded markets! How will you know which will survive and which will not? The diagram title is a bit misleading, not all the solutions are open source tools. However even those that are open source are NOT FREE!

Look at longevity and enterprise customer base. Look especially at those big data platforms who have customers using their solution in mission critical applications. When serious make sure a thorough, competitive, apples to apples evaluation/proof of concept is conducted.

ZDNet Why the cloud will never (entirely) replace in-house applications ZDNet Cloud computing, with its promise of cheap, easy access to enterprise-class applications via the internet, is a seductive concept for many cash-strapped organisations as...

The recent events in Boston--and, in particular, the way people pulled together so quickly and with such love--prompted me to revisit this blog from last Christmas... I thought you all might want to take a look again as well.

Post-Boston, I would add a 6th reason: America is a country where the true majority are caring people. Despite our disagreements, we are all Americans.... all of us....

The first three posts in this series talked about performance, projects and platforms as key themes in what is beginning to feel like a watershed year for Hadoop. All three are reflected in the surprising emergence of a...

IBM is introducing new data discovery software that enables business users to visually interact with and apply advanced analytics to their data without any specialized skills to get deeper insights about their business. The new software will help close the analytics skills gap that makes current data discovery tools inaccessible for the everyday business user and make it possible to go from raw information to answers hidden deep within structured and unstructured information in minutes.

It was bound to happen and IBM seems headed in the right direction - Predictive Analytics and Data Visualization converge in the cloud. In a post 911 era, analysts recognized that revealing insights required the human mind to explore data in an unconstrained manner. If they had the chance to interact with disparate data sets, visualize that data in different forms and navigate to connection points directed by their experience, they could quickly pinpoint relationships that matter.

Today, groundbreaking approaches in intelligence analysis have their foundations built on unconstrained data discovery. Insurance organizations are applying interactive data visualization to uncover patterns that clearly point to fraud and collusion. eCommerce organizations are using these techniques to examine both employee and vendor behavior as they connect the dots highlighting networks of interest.

This revolution in analysis is only just beginning. Imagine what can be accomplished when predictive models and rules are applied to big data in real time yielding more focused data sets for discovery.

Four years ago I spoke with a global top 10 bank that applied predictive models to detect fraudulent transactions. When I asked if they had combined this approach with data visualization to pick up on any error in the models, they responded that their analysts couldn't use those tools because they were too complex. They couldn't identify fraud networks using relationship graphs. After nearly $2 billion in fines, I wonder if they are rethinking this approach? The fact is, they could have detected money laundering among their account holders by joining the results of predictive analysis with human data discovery.

Within 5 years, I would be surprised if every major bank, insurance company, retailer and healthcare organization wasn't following in the footsteps of the intelligence community. As these analytic methods converge, the criminal's chances of hiding the truth diminish dramatically.

MarkLogic is uniquely positioned on this database landscape map. Here's what makes the position very different from other vendors:

1. Search - MarkLogic is directly connected to all the major enterprise search vendors. Recent recognition of this was confirmed by Gartner in its Enterprise Search Magic Quadrant. Notice that other NoSQL technologies are nowhere close to this connection point.

2. General Purpose - MarkLogic provides an enterprise NoSQL database and Application Services and Search. With support for many development languages, REST and JAVA APIs, MarkLogic has clear links to SAP, Enterprise DB and a host of other database providers.

3. Graph and Document - MarkLogic has long been recognized as a document store and used widely all over the world for this purpose. Notice the subtle connection to Graph as well connecting MarkLogic to other vendors in this space like Neo4J. MarkLogic 7 promises to deliver a world class triple store to index subjects, predicates and objects in XML documents or load other triples through the MarkLogic Content Pump. For the first time, the only Enterprise NoSQL technology with search will include semantics. Updated APIs and support for SPARQL are part of this release.

4. Big Tables - MarkLogic's ability to handle big data has long been known. The olive green line is designated for vendors like MarkLogic, Cassandra, HBASE, etc. MarkLogic's partnership with Intel for Distribution of Apache Hadoop and the fact that MarkLogic ships with Hadoop connectors provide additional confirmation for this position.

5. Key Value Stores - Data can be stored as keys without a database schema required lby relational databases. In MarkLogic's case, huge quantities of data can be indexed in real time with data stored in memory and disk making search results instant and complete. After a recent analysis of over 50+ MarkLogic customers, the abilty to quickly get up and running and deliver new information products to market was a business driver they mentioned over and over again.

The fact is, no one else on the list has all of these qualities. Because of this unique position, visually you see MarkLogic distanced from other clusters or long lists of technology vendors.

Business Cloud News Big Data: the Hoarder's dream Business Cloud News The era of Big Data is so closely aligned with cloud because it benefits from the same adoption of commodity hardware and open source software that suddenly makes the storage...

Amazon's S3 Storage Cloud Hits 2 Trillion Objects Data Center Knowledge AWS is an engine for startups and innovators across the web, and often serves (at least partially) as the backend for a lot of big time applications like Dropbox.

Popular Mechanics The Most Data Storage for Your Buck Popular Mechanics Cloud storage is a good way to go if you have a steady Internet connection or unlimited data, or you don't want to invest in a big external hard drive you could lose or destroy.

Aetna is using predictive analytics to help members reduce the likelihood of heart disease, but getting them to adhere to best health practices remains “a challenge.” (RT @bighealthidea: Aetna Innovation Labs in WSJ.

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